Log in/Register

Please log in or register to continue. Registration is free and requires only your email address.

Log in

Register

Emailrequired

PasswordrequiredRemember me?

Please enter your email address and click on the reset-password button. You'll receive an email shortly with a link to create a new password. If you have trouble finding this email, please check your spam folder.

Speaking of an open warfare, it's so strange to see Erdogan trying to dispatch a group of so-called religious extremists named after Fethullah Gulen whose conditions had never met the criteria of an ordinary Turkish citizen that's able to possess a green passport in order to have a right of abode in the US. Given the fact that those actions of that particular person including a one-way flight to the US back in the late 90's, any of the governments in the political history of Turkey had never clearly bothered to investigate one's activity to the US with a green passport which he had no right to possess. Now, turning this then-allied collaboration into a strategic warfare in order to protect his interest will let Turkey meet a crisis in the field of economics, politics and unity like never before. There's another fact that despite of thousands of people arrested, including lots of political activist, with no intend to participate in actual living politics of Turkey, but not even a person from ruling party aka Islamic Justice and Development Party (AKP) got arrested or whatsoever. Does that sound a little bit strange to you out there expecting that anyone could have close relationships with the Gulenists whom once were allied with a political party back in from 2007 to 2013? I doubt that doesn't. So, the subject matter that people opposed against both the government of Turkey and the Gulenists want to know if something else is happening behind their backs right now. Apparently, we'll never be able to know.

Political Islam= Sharia Law! The Author has no ideas what is behind this failed coup. Neither have I.
But democracy suffers when it is replaced with Islamic Laws.
It will look like a Turkish version of Putinism!

It is unclear whether your post is from a pro-EU or anti EU perspective. Turkey is the linchpin in the evolving geopolitical struggle. A strong relationship between the EU and Turkey is vitally important.
Initially, Gülen was blamed not only for the attempted coup but Gülenists were also blamed for shooting down the Russian warplane early in the year. There are statements in the media by Turkey's foreign minister that Russia knew about the coup before Erdoğan. This suggests the possibility that Erdoğan was warned of an emerging coup perhaps a month preceding the coup leading to Erdoğan's apology for shooting down the Russian warplane. Was the intent to build a case that the U.S. harboring Gülen had involvement with the coup? There was great concern about U.S. nuclear weapons at the Incirklik airbase, including disinformation that the weapons were being moved to Romania.
The possibility existed that Turkey could have withdrawn from NATO and embarked on a deeper partnership with Russia. The rhetoric from Turkey appears to have significantly cooled on the issue of Gülen, his possible direct role in the coup, and the possible role of the U.S. Turkey now talks of joint initiatives with the U.S. to defeat ISIS in Syria. The visa-free regime with the EU is now a priority. Reading the comments it appears that Gülen's involvement in the coup is unlikely and that U.S. Turkey diplomacy is quietly at work. The future of a Russian - Turkish partnership seems less clear.

The testimony of Turkey’s current Chief of the General Staff Hulusi Akar is one of the direct links, which is quite unreliable because of the following reasons.

A. In his testimony he says “General Hakan Evrim asked me if I wanted to talk to our opinion leader Fetullah Gulen” as the coup was going on. This is the single most important evidence that the order to topple down the civilian government came directly from Gulen. The problem is, anyone who knows anything about the Gulen movement and has some basic Turkish language skills would know that they never refer to Gulen as their “opinion leader.” (The wording General Akar uses is “kanaat onderi” ) It’s simply unnatural for a loyal Gulenist to use this terminology. Any sympathizer of Gulen usually refers to him as “Hojaefendi” or “Büyüğümüz” not “Kanaat Önderimiz” as Akar’s testimony claims. When Gulenists talk to someone who is not a Gulen sympathizer, they at least use the term “Gulen Hoca.” "Opinion Leader” sounds way too artificial, damaging the credibility of the account. It is either completely false that Gen. Evrim offered anything like this or he is not familiar with the jargon of Gulenists -- almost impossible for someone who was with the movement for decades, according to the allegations.

B. Of course, it is difficult to verify the account, especially given the fact that the phone call to Gulen did not take place. If Akar was smart, he would have perhaps agreed to the conversation so that it would be possible to track if such a phone call went through.

C. One needs to ask this very vital question: Why would anyone, who is in the midst of a bloody military coup, even consider making Gulen talk to his hostage? And why Akar, who allegedly did everything he can to stop coup plotters, did not take a chance to urge Gulen to give up?

D. If the directive to overthrow the government came from Gulen, let it be. Why would Gulen want to talk to the army chief, who had allegedly refused to take over the leadership anyway? Why would Gulen, who refused to be associated with the coup attempt, blow his cover by doing something stupid?

E. The intelligence agency of Turkey (MIT) officially stated that they informed the Army Chief of Staff at 4pm on the day of the coup and held a meeting with him and other top generals. General Akar also confirmed this and also stated that to prevent a coup attempt, he sent official orders to all army posts for to prevent any attempt. Thus the coup attempt was known by MIT and General Akar hours before it started, if not earlier. Both agencies also confirmed that none of them informed the President or the Prime minister at all. As Erdogan repeatedly mentioned he learned the attempt from his brother-in-law, a retired teacher! Erdogan repeatedly said that he called the head of MIT and Chief of Staff Akar immediately but could not reach either of them and none of them called back.

Given the logical holes and unexplained hours between the time General Akar learned about the coup and his “alleged” abduction, his testimony has no credibility, thus leaves no credible connection between the coup and Gulen but raises a ton of suspicion and questions regarding who really is behind the coup:

Given the very close and strong relationship between the head of intelligence agency MIT, Hakan Fidan, and Erdogan, anyone familiar with Turkey would know that it is impossible for him not to inform Erdogan about a possible coup plot. So, it is clear that all of them are lying about that fact. That's a fact. Then, this brings the following questions:

What was the role of the intelligence agency MIT? What was really the role of General Akar in the coup? And most importantly, what was the role of Erdogan himself?

Just to note, that Mr. Rodrik misleads the reader to think that those 17K jailed are all public officials, which is not true. Hundreds, if not, thousands of them are not public officials. They include businessmen, private school teachers, doctors, attorneys, bankers, and even many of housewifes! Apparently all these were part of the "parallel state".

Another wow, "an open warfare"? Can you please give us a clue on what had happened? Another set of "sham trials", this time of the largest corruption allegations of the Turkish history? Well, this time it was Erdogan's turn to claim that all the corruption evidence against him and his government were "fabricated"!

Wow! Even the Turkish government doesn't have the evidence for these claims but Mr. Rodrik figured it all out. Here are a few puzzling questions though:
1-Who is the mastermind(s) of the coup? Nobody knows, but apparently Mr. Rodrik knows.
2- Even if he knows the leaders of the coup, then how does he know that they are Gulenists? Well, let me guess, the written confessions? Well, the problem with those is that, how can we be sure that they are the real testimonies of the officers? Even if they are, it's clear from the publicly revealed pictures that the officers were tortured severely, which is also reported by Amnesty International. Thus, if the Turkish police had captured Mr. Rodrik, I bet they would be able to make him confess of being the ringleader of the coup.

First of all, the author forgot (!) to to mention that his father-in-law was a Turkish military general, who was tried as the mastermind of a coup plot in one of those trials. So much for academic honesty that necessitates the revealing of conflict-of interest! Even shopping site reviewers reveal any conflict of interest they have. Secondly, these trials were neither "fictitious conspiracies", nor "show trials". They had vast amount of credible evidence, which were trashed out because of the questionable other evidence. If the prosecutors stuck to the credible evidence, most likely, they could still have had the accused convicted. But they didn't and shame on them.

Dani Rodrik points out the threats - real and perceived - that Turkey's ruthless president Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces. Ever since he became prime minister, Erdogan was obsessed with the fear that he could be ousted, because the secularist establishment - espeically the the military - harboured deep "antipathy" toward political Islam. Secularists feared that Islamism could replace Kemalism, the secular ethos of Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Attatürk.
Since Erdogan was jailed for four months in 1999 for publicly reading a religiously nationalist poem, he was determined to assert civilian control over the army one day. When he and his Islamist party, the AKP gained power in 2002, they felt threatened by the hard-core secularists who had dominated the military since the days of Ataturk. In the decades before the AKP's rise to power, the military intervened in politics four times to curb Islamist influence.
Erdogan viewed the Gulenist cadres in the state as an asset, and an alliance was born. His government supported Gulenist police officers, prosecutors and judges as they went after secularists. Senior officers were among a large group of people convicted of plotting to overthrow Erdogan in what was known as the "Ergenekon" case. However the convictions were later quashed, because Critics accused Erdogan of using the judiciary to silence political opponents, and there had been many allegations of trumped-up charges.
When the witch hunt was over, Erdogan turned on the Gülenists, as they sought to replace those they had removed. A corruption scandal rocked Turkey in December 2013, in which Erdogan's cronies were arrested. He put the blame on opponents who conspired to destabilise Turkey. The internal strife between the two leaders - Erdogan and Gülen - led ultimately to the coup attempt last July, which "fully validated Erdogan’s paranoia."
What the author finds tragic is that Erdogan hadn't made use of the failed coup to unify the country, which has been more divided than ever. Instead he seeks to uphold the state of emergency to justify his iron grip on power, and achieve his dream of changing the constitution to establish an authoritarian presidential system.
The purge targeting of “Gülenist terrorists” will backlash, as many of them are on the periphery of the Gülenist movement, which has sowed hatred among Erdogan's opponents. Besides his tentative peace efforts with the Kurds in south-eastern Turkey collapsed. Initially he had refused to help the Syrian Kurds fight ISIS. But now he is shelling their settlments, preventing them from gaining more territories on the Turkish border. All these conflicts will absorb much of Turkey's resources in the coming years.
It is no longer tenable to plunge Turkey into "a never-ending cycle of victimization – of Islamists, communists, secularists, Kurds perennially, and now the Gülenists." Erdogan owed much of his political success in the past decade to economic growth. If Turkey's economy fails to recover, the mood of his supporters will also sour.
The author points out that Erdogan "is making the same tragic mistake he made in 2009-2010: using his vast popularity to undermine democracy and the rule of law rather than restoring them – and thus rendering moderation and political reconciliation all the more difficult in the future." He may have had the chance twice "to be a great leader," but he doesn't seem to care about the legacy he will leave behind. What matters to him are his ego and all the trappings of power, like the 1,000-room palatial residence, that had cost over $600 million. His supporters have been quiet, because they are being distracted by the threats posed by enemies at home and abroad.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has charted a moderate course, considering everything that has occurred within Turkey and in the region around Turkey since 2003.

Millions of refugees from Iraq, Syria, the Arab Spring nations, and even from the Middle East proper, have descended on Turkey.

And only a pittance of help from the West to accommodate all those millions. UNHCR needs at least one order of magnitude more funding to properly deal with the continuing fallout of the proxy conflicts around Turkey.

Erdoğan may appear to be undemocratic, and there may even be some truth to that. However, if he keeps getting elected by the Turkish people, then what's the charge, exactly?

Powerful people like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and (should it ever come to pass) Fethullah Gülen can best be prevented from running away with power via strong international monitoring of elections.

When a President of a country won't allow that, every alarm bell should ring at the UN, and increasingly stringent steps should be taken to remedy the situation. (Invasion, occupation, overthrowing the government, etc. should always be the absolute last resort) Soft power can accomplish anything we want it to -- should the need arise -- if that soft power is engaged early-enough in the process.

Until then however, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the democratically elected leader of Turkey, an important nation, not only to Europe, but globally.

My prescription for Turkey is:
(1) "Trust, but verified" with the Turkish government
(2) Huge funding increase for Turkey, they are bearing the brunt of all the proxy conflicts around them -- more than ALL other nations combined. It's a joke how little support Turkey has been given!
(3) European and MENA nations, backed by the U.S. need to create a body (similar in size/scope to the U.S. Study Group on Iraq) to look at purported anti-democratic events in Turkey and publicly publish an agreed-upon statement of facts, to put Erdoğan on notice that any undemocratic activities will be made public, henceforth. And keep it operating past Erdoğan's time in office -- and dissolve it only when all of Turkey's questionable activities end -- which I predict will occur probably on the same day as when all the proxy conflicts going on around Turkey end.

See also:

In the first year of his presidency, Donald Trump has consistently sold out the blue-collar, socially conservative whites who brought him to power, while pursuing policies to enrich his fellow plutocrats.

Sooner or later, Trump's core supporters will wake up to this fact, so it is worth asking how far he might go to keep them on his side.

A Saudi prince has been revealed to be the buyer of Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi," for which he spent $450.3 million. Had he given the money to the poor, as the subject of the painting instructed another rich man, he could have restored eyesight to nine million people, or enabled 13 million families to grow 50% more food.

While many people believe that technological progress and job destruction are accelerating dramatically, there is no evidence of either trend. In reality, total factor productivity, the best summary measure of the pace of technical change, has been stagnating since 2005 in the US and across the advanced-country world.

The Bollywood film Padmavati has inspired heated debate, hysterical threats of violence, and a ban in four states governed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party – all before its release. The tolerance that once accompanied India’s remarkable diversity is wearing thin these days.

The Hungarian government has released the results of its "national consultation" on what it calls the "Soros Plan" to flood the country with Muslim migrants and refugees. But no such plan exists, only a taxpayer-funded propaganda campaign to help a corrupt administration deflect attention from its failure to fulfill Hungarians’ aspirations.

French President Emmanuel Macron wants European leaders to appoint a eurozone finance minister as a way to ensure the single currency's long-term viability. But would it work, and, more fundamentally, is it necessary?

The US decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel comes in defiance of overwhelming global opposition. The message is clear: the Trump administration is determined to dictate the Israeli version of peace with the Palestinians, rather than to mediate an equitable agreement between the two sides.